On the Brain » Uncategorizedhttp://www.ohsu.edu/blogs/brain
Just another OHSU Blogs siteWed, 16 Aug 2017 16:08:40 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.15Q&A with OBI Scientist Dr. Bill Rooneyhttp://www.ohsu.edu/blogs/brain/2015/07/10/qa-with-obi-scientist-dr-bill-rooney/
http://www.ohsu.edu/blogs/brain/2015/07/10/qa-with-obi-scientist-dr-bill-rooney/#commentsFri, 10 Jul 2015 18:17:53 +0000http://www.ohsu.edu/blogs/brain/?p=2762Read More]]>It happened quietly. Without much pomp or circumstance, hundreds of scientists have been hard at work – exploring the inner workings of our brain. From blooming biotech to impassioned community advocacy, the Pacific Northwest has become a hotbed for neuroscience.

We sat down with OHSU Brain Institute Senior Scientist and graduate Neuroscience faculty member, Bill Rooney, Ph. D., to hear where regional neuroscience research is headed, including the burgeoning “Northwest NeuroNeighborhood.”

When you compare the Pacific Northwest neurotech network with what’s happening in other parts of the country, how do we fare?

The gravitational centers of neurotech are in New York, Boston, the Bay area and LA. But there are also great things going on in the Pacific Northwest. Seattle is an emerging neurotech powerhouse.

In Portland, OSHU has tremendous strength and breadth in neuroscience. The Vollum Institute is one of the top basic neuroscience institutes in the country.

Imaging technologies are key in neuroscience, and OHSU is an emerging leader in this area with substantial investments in advanced imaging capabilities that extend from single molecule to living animals. Behavioral neuroscience and the neuroscience graduate programs are exceptionally well-ranked academic programs, and have outstanding faculty and leadership.

Why does Oregon need a regional neuro hub?

To compete more effectively and more rapidly advance new discoveries to change lives. The Northwest NeuroNeighborhood takes a lot of the talent that already exists in the area and makes the most of it. Researchers are great at discovery, but the other aspects of developing these ideas into tools and drugs and devices that advance human health, that’s where things often fall apart. Discoveries are often not taken past that point. Having ideas and novel concepts is wonderful, but, if they don’t really rise to the level where they’re advancing human health, that’s a real shame.

This network attempts to cross that divide, to introduce people that have these ideas to other individuals who can identify ideas that will impact human health, and then bring those ideas out of the lab and into the community.

Having a regional hub also helps keep the public involved, which is important. That’s one aspect of science that’s often lacking.

How closely related are the Pacific NW network and President Obama’s BRAIN Initiative?

A lot of the goals that were advanced by President Obama through his BRAIN Initiative were exactly what we were already doing across the region. The Allen Institute had big hand in defining the objectives in the White House BRAIN Initiative.

What’s the top goal of the regional neurotech hub?

Our number one goal is to advance neuroscience activity across the board in the Northwest. A strategy to accomplish this is to increase interactions and collaborations in the region and keep people informed about what’s going on. When new opportunities come along, you often don’t have much time to respond. To be competitive, it’s crucial to have some foundation for these relationships that cross institutions before you learn of grant announcements.

Can you tell us about a few opportunities that have emerged from the NeuroNeighborhood so far?

We have started to see some of the benefits of having a regional network of people with shared interests. A small company in Seattle, called M3 Biotechnology, has teamed with scientists at the Oregon National Primate Research Center. Together, they can more effectively test M3’s new small molecule drugs for preserving neurons in diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

The NW NeuroNeighborhood has also helped strengthen collaborative research on Traumatic Brain Injury being done by OHSU, the University of Washington and Mt. Sinai.

I’m working on a project with Dirk Keene at the University of Washington, Randy Woltjer, an OHSU neuropathologist, Yossi Berlow, an OHSU MD/PhD student, and Jay Nutt and Matt Brodsky of OHSU to look at anatomical features in Parkinson’s that will help identify the disease at earlier stages. This would enable us to provide treatments and develop cohorts earlier – before there’s substantial loss of neurons, while some neurons can still be rescued.

Can this research serve as an economic engine for the region?

That’s always a hope. Because that is an important metric that discoveries are having an impact. The challenge is always the time scale. Research doesn’t work on a business quarter. It’s a much slower and deliberate process.

***

Learn more about the important work happening at the OHSU Brain Institute. More details on Dr. Rooney’s research can be found here.

]]>http://www.ohsu.edu/blogs/brain/2015/07/10/qa-with-obi-scientist-dr-bill-rooney/feed/0Finding the end of the story…in different wayshttp://www.ohsu.edu/blogs/brain/2014/07/18/finding-the-end-of-the-story-in-different-ways/
http://www.ohsu.edu/blogs/brain/2014/07/18/finding-the-end-of-the-story-in-different-ways/#commentsFri, 18 Jul 2014 16:43:39 +0000http://www.ohsu.edu/blogs/brain/?p=1143Read More]]>Many years ago, while walking down a sidewalk with my son, I looked down at my small boy and asked him whether he preferred reading fiction or non-fiction. He said he likes what he learns from non-fiction but it isn’t as exciting as fiction. Non-fiction tells you what’s happening right from the start, he said, but in fiction, you don’t find out until the end.

His comment was an epiphany for me. I study mouse social behavior, an area of research useful for understanding autism, addiction and animal communication. I have a Ph.D. in immunology, master’s degrees in behavioral ecology and toxicology, more than 30 scientific publications and I’ve been a professor in behavioral neuroscience at OHSU for nearly seven years. As a scientist, I often don’t have answers after a year of research, or even after a decade. So, in a sense, I experience science more like a reader of fiction than of non-fiction. Irked by how science is portrayed to the public, I decided to learn how to write creatively, like an author whom non-scientists — normal people — might actually read.

Over the last 10 years, I’ve taken writing classes at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival and worked with a mentor in creative writing. I submitted my first essay, ‘NQR,’ to a writing contest fielded by december magazine. It’s not a well-known magazine, but has featured works early in the careers of some great authors including Joyce Carol Oates, William Stafford, Marvin Bell and Raymond Carver. In this essay, I watch a young boy undergo a clinical evaluation for autism and consider myths about the science process that our society holds dear. ‘NQR’ won the Curt Johnson Prose Award in Creative Nonfiction.

When I write up my scientific studies, my discoveries are behind me. When I write creative essays, I make discoveries while I’m typing. I guess my son knew that too.

It’s uncomfortable standing behind the one-way mirror. It extends from the drop ceiling to about chest height, so the gray metal chairs aren’t high enough to view the clinic room. The air tastes stale, marked by a tinge of glue once ladled under the blue-grey carpet. I watch through the mirror, my two graduate students standing beside me.

A six-year-old boy walks through our clinic room door, pauses, then continues toward a few toys scattered by a bin and a squat table near the left wall. I see wooden blocks, a plastic action figure, and a small pillow that looks like a smiling locomotive. He picks up several blocks and brings them to the center of the room. A clinician in her late 20s enters the room followed closely by a man and a woman. She gestures toward two small plastic seats formed like ice cream scoops, perched on thin chrome legs, better fitted for children. The boy’s parents sit down, side-by-side. The clinician sits down on a small chair by the wooden table. Knees high, she writes on the cover of a light blue pamphlet. The boy sits on the red-orange carpet, one leg curled below him, the other extended to shield the blocks.

The clinician reaches toward a blue polyurethane bin, its lid faded under the fluorescent lighting. Scrawled on its surface, as if there were no thought to its semi-permanence, reads, ‘ADOS Kit Complete: Autism Clinic.’ She wades her hand through the bin and draws out a bulky translucent plastic bag, opens it, and lets toys tumble onto the table.

“Jason, I have some toys here . . .”

On the floor, the boy turns a block, cradles it in his fingers and drops it, turns another block, cradles it in his fingers, and places it on the carpet.

An autism diagnosis is nuanced. Clinicians find children as “on the spectrum” if they repeat certain behaviors or thoughts and have difficulties with social interactions and communication. Each child on the spectrum tacks on a different orientation. One boy sways back and forth by the front door.

Read the essay in its entirety here – please note that you’ll be prompted to enter your name and email address in order to gain access.